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#why would you make it practically unplayable

txttletale · 23 days

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In response to your overwatch posting but more about competitive games in general, why is it fine and good for certain things to be low or high teir? It's a pipe dream to perfectly balance a game, but isnt the shackling of playstyles, characters, etc to a certain skill group a problem that fucks players at every level?

it's fine and good because it allows for designs that you couldn't make if you really want every character to be equally good. there's a basic expectation from players of competitive games that success should be correlated with skill, that if you play better, if you are better at the things the game asks of you (skillshots, or aiming, or movement tech, or inputs, or whatever) you will see better results. this is what makes a game competitive, right, the ability to get better and see your performance improve as a result.

this means, that, generally speaking, the harder a thing is to do in a game, the more rewarding it will be. this is the logic behind headshots in FPS games, right--it's more difficult to hit a headshot than a bodyshot, so you get rewarded with more damage. better players can hit more headshots, so they'll get more damage (and presumably more kills) in an average round than worse players. so now, let's say you want to introduce some playstyle differentiation into your game, so you add the Scanner, a gun that deals half damage on bodyshots but double damage on headshots.

this is a cool idea! it rewards you even more for showing skill at the game, makes people using it feel really cool when they get that bonus, poses interesting questions to players about trading consistency for volatility. but because it interacts with a skill-based mechanic, its viability is obviously going to be tied to a player's skill--if you're in a pro lobby hitting 60%+ of your headshots, it's an obvious pick. if you've just started playing and you average one headshot a match, it's a total dud.

this is a really on-the-nose example, of course -- but in any kind of competitive game, there are likely going to be far more than just one skill-based mechanic, as well as meta-skills like team communication, positional awareness, understanding matchups, etc. that are going to vary between low and high levels of play. so trying to make a character/weapon/playstyle equally viable at every level of play would mean having to make them essentially agnostic to all those things--which would mean not allowing them to interact with any of the mechanics of the game--which is, practically speaking, impossible.

on the other hand, purposefully designing 'low-tier' or 'high-tier' characters lets you do lots of really useful things! first of all, it lets you make easier characters for beginners, who don't have a huge amount of mechanical complexity to deal with, have some kind of 'training wheel' ability that mitigates a new players' lack of all these game-winning skills. like, say, a gun in that same FPS designed for a 'spray and pray' playstyle, or a character in a fighting game who revolves around one comparatively simple combo. having something like this lets new players onboard to your mechanically complex game without getting overwhelmed or disheartened, by letting them get into a match and feel like they're doing something as soon as possible.

as for 'high-tier' characters, acknowledging that a character will have to be nerfed into unplayability for low ranks lets you actually play with the upper ends of the mechanical complexities you've put into your game. creating characters with extremely complex movement techs that can offer marginal benefits that are game-defining in pro play but basically meaningless in casual play adds a new dimension of depth to high-level play that you can't get if you're too concerned about making every character good at every level.

ultimately, i don't think it fucks players, and i don't think there's any shackling being done--i think it's good to create characters that lean into different parts of a game, for characters to fill different niches in a meta's ecosystem, and for the lists of pro staples and pubstompers to be different.

#ask

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retphienix · 2 months

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I ain't gonna namedrop the game because in all truth, I like the game.

But fucking christ does it have like 10 of the "Modern Gaming Blights" tacked on for abso-fucking-lutely no good reason.

But I want to vague and just say isn't it fucking awesome when a game that in all truth does NOT need intense server demands but modern gamers are too dense to recognize this because they haven't played a game that uses resources smartly in over 2 decades so it's been erased from their mind-

Isn't it fucking awesome when that game that doesn't need intense server demands proceeds to become unplayable during peak times such as friday nights or weekends because it has intense server demands and can't handle those demands and simply "turns off"?

Isn't it cool?

Isn't it "modern gaming"?

I'm looking at this game and thinking, and I mean this sincerely, "What the fuck".

Because this game is P2P small lobby games yet they tacked their entire infrastructure on expensive servers that micro manage 300 parts of the game that don't need micro managed to begin with, what the fuck is modern gaming.

I played a game with this exact same "world map server progression" 20 years ago and it used an old radioshack as their server because 99% of the game was on your disc and in your console. The server was called at the end of the mission "Did you win? Cool, added to the server results" and then it would be called for a spreadsheet of basic items to buy from shops.

It didn't double check your loadout every 4 seconds.

It didn't dedicate multiple megabytes of data transfer to seeing whether or not you're title card is legitimate.

None of that fucking matters. The whole game ran on a toaster server, then modern games are like "This game demands 5000 servers so it can properly cross-check that your username is spelled right" like fuck off bro. You're game doesn't work and it's costing you more to make it like this to begin with.

All I'm saying is in the old game I'm referencing, I could change my callsign and it would stay changed because it was on my end and would be p2p transferred to players I play with.

This "New Shiny Modern" game reverts all my cosmetic changes every fucking mission because it saves it ALLLLLLLLLLLL on the server and that fucking server reverts every 2 seconds and overworks itself because almost all of this fucking info doesn't need to be SERVER-SIDE DIPSHIT.

And now the game is down on this friday evening and I'm just confused as to why this is modern gaming.

Anyways that's me mentioning something that minorly annoyed me and then working myself up into a practical rage because wtf is with modern games <3

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autistdazai · 3 months

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dsmp characters as valo mains

my credentials are im iron 3 and watch a shit ton of foolish and etoiles valo streams :) based on fighting styles mostly cause i. love thinking about their fighting styles

ctommy - gekko creatures! so many creatures! also i feel like he would want the spike every round and be the first to peak every corner.

ctubbo - cypher very sneaky. teammates just give him half of the map to hold by himself. always by himself despite not having any offensive util. still carries every game best agent i love you!!!

cranboo - phoenix self-sufficient kit, also able to provide cover for teammates. still manages to bottom frag every game.

cwilbur - killjoy ho16 is some shit only a killjoy main would pull. setting up some cringe lineups and playing offsite so you don't actually have to shoot your gun. also the ult is clearing an area of the map without killing anyone which is basically plan bomb.

cquackity - brimstone sorry cq but im giving you brim cause ive never known a brim main that was good at the game. completely dogshit always all they do is sit in corners with a shotgun. just play support and whiff your ult like you're supposed to.

cdream - chamber controversial but like. its an agent dependent on accuracy and playing cringe and being toxic. got a massive nerf and is now unplayable.

cpunz - sage cpunz is literally dreams pocket sage. ult is a resurrection. both a support character and an offensive character.

ctechno - raze kaboom i mean. what do you want me to say. high damage good movement. requires you to be good at the game. teammates take him for granted and enemies hate his ass.

cphil - sova dogshit agent with horrible util but if you're in a 1-v-1 with him you are losing. snipes you clear across the map and then all his teammates come and fuck your shit. super non toxic which just makes you hate him more.

cniki - skye generally regarded as support character until they have to clutch a 1-v-5 because their teammates all suck and then they clutch the fuck out of it. this is my main hi niki nihachu !!!

cschlatt - reyna weird pick but reyna doesnt really have any abilities if you arent killing people but if you are its super strong. very imbalanced its either you are dying first every round or hitting an ace.

csapnap - omen every time i see someone be really good at omen i wonder why they arent playing a good agent instead. which reminds me of csap. pls just play yoru or something

csam - deadlock cause prison warden get it??? hahah. deadlocks use all their abilities on one person and still they end up killing her cause shes a terrible agent. L

cponk - breach in theory super strong but in practice i always wish i just had like. anyone else.

cjack manifold - KAY/O i almost forgot you just like i always forget KAY/O exists. even when theres a kay/o on my team i forget about it. also robot hc.

cslime - viper slime goop. falls apart whenever anyone actually attacks them but crucial for the team.

this is canon i asked the dream smp discord server and they all sent me this. i hope i didnt forget anyone im very tired

#dsmp #dream smp

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pearl484-blog · 1 year

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Crucial Experiences I Think Every Video Game Designer Should Have

Play a card game A card game is the grand-daddy of all games. They’re usually mot so complex though that the players can’t talk or interact, so they’re a good way to learn how players may interact with each other, different play styles, and get a good foundation of the flexibility of rules. After all, there are so many variations of games that you can play with a standard 52 pack of cards, each with different skillsets, playstyles and goals. Although more card games with many different players, games, and goals is preffered, try at least playing one game while trying to figure out what makes the game you are playing playable. What are the goals? What do people enjoy? What rules are there? Why do these rules exist and what purpose so they serve? What do players do with these rules? How many different play styles can I find? What appeals to what playstyle?

Play a Board Game Board games are a lot like card games in the way that they have rules you can analyze along with playstyles. However, they are much more customizable and have (limited) ability to tell story and have themes. You can analyze these in the same way way you analyze card games and learn about the effects of game pieces like dice, roulettes, more flexible rules, and flavor text.

Break a Board Game No, I don’t meant snap the board game over your knee in a fit of rage over it taking hours. Play a board game, and remove a rule, or add one, one change at a time, and see how it changes the experience. How is the pace affected? How do the players like it? What do they players suggest you change? What do you like? What would you like to fix? What features made the game unplayable? Board games are designed to be played in a certain way. They’re tested so they’re playable that way, but they’re flexible enough that you can change it and still have the basic foundations of a game. This will also prepare you for play testing in a relatable way. Most people would hate to play test a buggy game, but a prebuilt game has the flexibility to let you learn how to evaluate these things and see how it changes.

Design a board game Now, that you’ve learned about the elements of board games from breaking them, create one of your own. Have you and your friends playtest it to see what you like and don’t like. It’s a nice introduction to learning how to build a game of your own, and if you work with others, it’s teach you how to design a game in a group with no coding required.

Play a Tabletop Campaign If you enjoy rpgs, there’s a good chance that a lot of their game mechanics are based off of tabletop mechanics. Playing a tabletop campaign will allow you to see the design elements used and how the interact in the game world in a low stakes envoironment. It;s a useful fun way to learn about some of the mechanics you need to more complex games that you might struggle with if you learn in a more rigid way.

Be a Dungeon Master for a Tabletop Campaign Now that you’ve played a campaign or two, it’s time to design your own campaign and play with a group of players. This is a good way to learn how to design worlds with your players and learn to adapt to them. Tabletop players have their quirks, but it’s a good way to learn flexibility in real time with visible feedback (and also how to reign in your characters and keep them relatively on track with your game while also trying not to drain all the fun out) Being the dungeon master is a difficult job, but it’ll help you practice balancing elements with your players and when to let them go wild, give them rope to hang themselves, or straight up get them to stop whatever schenagians they’re doing. Be careful though. A bad group can really mess you up, and make sure you do your research too and ask other more experienced DMs for help. It’s hard, but there are reasources for it.

Play a Text Adventure Game The text adventure game is one of the earliest genres of games there is. Playing these will help you learn the importance of the interface and some of the good things about an interface and the bad things. It’ll also teach you about how to balance what a player needs to know and flavor text.

Design a Text Adventure Game The minimalist design of the text adventure game makes it perfect for beginners while also allowing you to learn about interfaces from the other side and force you to learn how to predict your players and guide them through the correct path. Hopefully any tabletop experiences will help in this endeavor, but you’re going to have some trial and error as you learn this stuff. Make sure you have a help menu and making an easy and clear way to let players know what objects they can interact with is very useful as well. Take your previous knowledge from your playthroughs to predict the pitfalls and have your friends playtest it so you can see what you did right and wrong. You’ll probably fail a lot at first, especially if you’re new to programming and/or design, but don’t give up. This is a rewarding way to learn how to program and the basics of a lot of video game design fundamentals.

#programming #video games

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pocketbelt · 4 months

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River City Girls 2 (Switch)

This was long overdue because they took quite a long time to resolve the Unity camera issue and other frame-rate problems. You'd think that wouldn't matter so much on Switch, especially as RCG1 runs fine (not as well as other systems, I think, but fine), but no, Switch has problems even with this. But, I'm not as inclined to blame the toaster for it, given the history for this one.

I played this online with a friend, and the online is deficit in some woeful ways. Host has significant advantage, which might not be unexpected, but with them in the US and me in Europe, we needed to use the European server as the US host using a US server caused such hideous lag it was practically unplayable. It still lagged frequently (though it's hard to tell what was network issue and what was general performance issue), and the game's rollback would kick in fucking viciously and just teleport me across the screen.

But the real kicker is, inexplicably, the game does not share progress for both players. And like, no, do not listen to the assertion that that is difficult or unreasonable to implement; just make it set the fucking progress flags for all players and hand all items to all players! Player 2 gets the EXP and money handed out by clearing story sections and sidequests, but not the items or other unlocks - including the two new player characters unlocked through the story - for no good reason! They even made custom graphics telling Player 2 to unlock them on their own! This has been a solved problem for basically as long as there's been online play, MMOs as a concept are around 25 years old at least!

I grant you, WayForward doesn't do online multiplayer, it's why RCG1 didn't have it, but even so: how?! However you've set your triggers for unlocking items and characters, how can you not set it to ping for both players, especially if you can set it to display a customised image message telling Player 2 to go fuck themselves?

There's never any good excuse for this and there isn't one here!

Outside of all that, River City Girls 2 is still fun. It has all the same woes as RCG1 as ultimately not much at all has changed, but it's still a fun beat 'em up and its spritework and animations and art style are top-notch. But the issues still resound: bosses are generally better but quite a lot of them are still bad, guard-breaking is a conceptually good addition but the execution makes them too fussy to use (enemies block less than in RCG1 at least), grab attacks are useless as unless you play Marian you will never stun anyone, the map is woeful at indicating which exit on the screen goes where, menus are identical to RCG1 and thus pretty bad (why doesn't the move shop show the inputs involved so you can tell what it is? Why can't you see your inventory on item shop screens?), on and on.

It speaks to the intrinsic joy and the satisfaction of beating foes that RCG has that the game is still fun in spite of this. You learn to work around them (become very fond of specials and launchers) but they'll nip at your heels the whole time. I don't think you'd intrinsically change what RCG is by resolving some of these issues, so if they do go back for a round 3 they had better bring their A-game for it.

If you enjoyed River City Girls 1, by all means get 2, especially if you're playing alone. I think there's quite some merit to 2's approach but I'd still recommend going to RCG1 first if you're new. And if you want to play it in online multiplayer, you get that shit on a sale.

#pocket-media-tag

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otherworldlyoddities · 11 months

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Raven sat alone in the ballroom, her fingers flying over the strings in perfect practiced movements as the bow sawed back and forth. The sound was so close to a train entering a station and coming to a stop. It was full of life and colour, even the name of the piece spoke of something wonderful, "Orange Blossom Special", what a wonderful name for a wonderful piece of music. How fitting for a place where she came to escape.

She finished her piece, the last remaining sounds echoing off the walls. She closed her eyes to listen to the last vibrations leave the air, then started on her next piece. This was one she wrote herself. It was slow and sad. She called it "The Last Dance", and she was very proud of it. Everytime she played it she could see two shadowy figures gliding elegantly across the floor of her ballroom, their movements somber but still hopeful. Her violin wailed and sobbed with each sweep of the bow, sounding like someone asking why fate was so cruel. The ending was almost akin to a lullaby in it's sober finality.

She placed her violin back in its case, taking extra care with it. It was her most prized possession, and she did not want to lose it to those…men who wanted to play God. They weren't overly cruel-She had heard screams and pleading from the room next to her, and they hadn't even created that one-but they did not like the freedom this place offered. They couldn't get here though. The violin on the other hand was in danger. It was real, the true thing hidden safely under her cot. In the real world it was a broken, twisted thing, completely unplayable. One day she would escape and get it fixed and sit on a street corner and play the violin for all the people walking past. She wouldn't even care if they put money in her case or not. She would sit and play and watch the birds fly.

"She's gone again."

A voice shook Raven out of her world. She was lying in bed and two people stood over her.

"Maybe she was just sleeping."

"In any case, we have to get her to testing."

Raven sat up.

"What are you testing today my good doctors?"

The first man checked his clipboard.

"Reflexes and reaction speed."

Raven kept down a smile. She was very good at these.

"Wonderful."

She followed the two out of her meager room, her long black hair swishing behind her. If you looked at it in the right way they almost looked like wings. Her cane tapped a rhythm on the ground, a beat for a dance something else was doing. She wore a plain white gown, nothing like the elegant dress of her dream world but still flowing and wonderful. She radiated elegance with each step. That was another thing they couldn't take. Not her world, not her grace. Certainly not her confidence. She knew what she was made from. They could cut her open, throw as many things at her as they wished, run her ragged, but at the end of the day she was Raven and that in itself was powerful. That wasn't her line, she had been told it by a little bird who visited her dreams. Or was it a cat? Either way, it was quite calming and quite wise.

The test was simple: She must catch every single playing card from the air without a single one hitting the ground. They were released from the ceiling. The wind in the chamber was manipulated in order to make the task harder. She found it no challenge, except for the days when she could barely raise her arms let alone catch the cards. Today was luckily not one of those days. She swirled and plucked each out of the air, stooping to catch the ones that had almost fallen. It was only when the wind picked up when she began having problems. She couldn't push against it, it took so much effort…she was starting to regret how hard she had played earlier. The cards she had collected fell from her hand and joined the rest in swirling around her.

She suddenly felt a sharp pain in her ankle and cried out. There was something implanted in several weak points of her body that could cause a shock to her system as "motivation", but very few scientists used it. It almost always had the opposite effect anyways. The pain sent her to the floor, and she simply could not get up again. She could only lay there and gasp desperately in the chamber, the wind stealing the air from her lungs. She was taken out, then brought to the infirmary where they checked her over. It seemed she had just fallen victim to her body simply not having enough energy to move her. Everyone said it was just a side effect of her make-up which made Raven question why they thought it was a good idea in the first place. Why create something that would suffer?

She faded back into her ballroom. She sank low into her chair. It had switched from a hard folding chair to a very soft lounge chair. It was quite plush and cradled her tired body perfectly. Her dream world always knew what she needed. She couldn't control it exactly, just suggest things that may or may not be reacted to. It was almost like a friend. There was even soft, sweet music floating through the room and the scent of warm apple pie filled the room. She would fall asleep here if not for the fact she was sure she was already asleep. A moth flitted across her view and rested on her wrist. She smiled gently at it and watched as it inspected her dress for food. It flew away disappointed.

Footsteps approached, and she looked up to see a long, tall silhouette. It looked quite like her, but she knew who this was.

“Good evening, Starchild.”

“The same to you, Raven.”

He sat cross legged on the floor in front of her.

“Are you tired?”

She leaned her chin on the arm of the chair and nodded.

“I must have strained myself playing today. I didn’t realize it until the testing. How are your travels?”

“Wonderful. I’ve met so many people…you are still my favorite though.”

Raven found herself blushing.

“Oh, don’t flatter me!”

Starchild took her hand, pulling her up from the chair. She felt so much less tired with him.

“No flattery here.”

They began to step across the floor, getting their bearings with each other before moving faster, hands intertwined as they spun across the floor to the music’s ebb and swell. They were a swirl of black and white, lace and muslin and velvet. Nothing mattered but their dance.

Once it was over Raven woke up again. She just laid there for a bit, smiling.

I LOVE THIS I LOVE THIS I LOVE THIS-

She’s gone through so much but she still has support and eventually even finds a family-

It’s a beautiful story. You always have the best ideas.

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gmanwhore · 11 months

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I wrote thing for Raven because I am. Yeah.

"She's gone again."

A voice shook Raven out of her world. She was lying in bed and two people stood over her.

"Maybe she was just sleeping."

"In any case, we have to get her to testing."

Raven sat up.

"What are you testing today my good doctors?"

The first man checked his clipboard.

"Reflexes and reaction speed."

Raven kept down a smile. She was very good at these.

"Wonderful."

Footsteps approached, and she looked up to see a long, tall silhouette. It looked quite like her, but she knew who this was.

“Good evening, Starchild.”

“The same to you, Raven.”

He sat cross legged on the floor in front of her.

“Are you tired?”

She leaned her chin on the arm of the chair and nodded.

“I must have strained myself playing today. I didn’t realize it until the testing. How are your travels?”

“Wonderful. I’ve met so many people…you are still my favorite though.”

Raven found herself blushing.

“Oh, don’t flatter me!”

Starchild took her hand, pulling her up from the chair. She felt so much less tired with him.

“No flattery here.”

Once it was over Raven woke up again. She just laid there for a bit, smiling.

#we're lights on a wire; raven #orchid's writing

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longgiant · 2 years

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Dirt rally xbox one

#Dirt rally xbox one Ps4

#Dirt rally xbox one plus

The racer which has now left Steam Early Access with the arrival of the Winter.

#Dirt rally xbox one Ps4

With the PS4 and Xbox One I think there has been a much bigger appetite for games that ask more of you as a player, he says. Dirt Rally is coming to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on April 6, 2016. Dirt Rally chief game designer Paul Coleman. People around the world bought this game, It is also frequently advertised on the Xbox game pass where people pay subscription that includes Dirt. Coleman was pleased with the positive reaction to confirmation Codemasters would be porting the extremely well-received Dirt Rally to current generation consoles. Can Codemasters please at least acknowledge this issue if not fix it? I have spent a huge amount of money on the Dirt franchise over the years including multiple purchases of both Dirt & Dirt 4 and I have to say I have been so disappointed with post release support of Dirt I am losing faith in Codemasters. DiRT Rally captures the essence of what makes rally unique that sense of trying to remain in control of your emotions, as you hurtle along dangerous, undulating roads. A pure expression of rally, the pinnacle of off-road motor racing and it begins now, with regular free updates since release date. Has anyone else experienced this? Or know why its occurring? It has now very unfortunately made Dirt practically unplayable for me. Welcome to DiRT Rally - a new world of DiRT. Even in Youtube videos stating the user was on Xbox one X had the exact same issue so I am fairly certain it is an X specific problem. Get the best deals on DiRT Rally 2.0 Game of the Year Edition (Xbox One) - Xbox Live Key - UNITED STATES at the most attractive prices on the market. DiRT Rally is the most authentic and thrilling rally game ever made, road-tested over 80 million miles by the DiRT community.

#Dirt rally xbox one plus

Every other of the 60 plus games I own work perfectly fine on my Xbox and I have reinstalled the game 5 times plus both by disc and digitally and still the issue persists permanently now. Turning fences and signs predominantly but including all roadside props and even sometimes patches on the road and the car itself bright green or yellow/orange in colour. But I recently upgraded to an Xbox one X having had the day one console since release and I reinstalled Dirt recently to find that on the X besides the known glitches there now appears to a lighting texture issue that effects stages in Sunlight. Anyway at the end of the day if you usually quit the rally and restarted the glitch typically wouldn't bother you again for as long as your session lasted and given Dirt Rally is my favourite game I could live with that. I know the visual texture glitches are well documented in Dirt, Especially the multicoloured cockpit glitch and why Codemasters never fixed this very well known issue is still a mystery to me.

#Dirt rally xbox one

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red-dead-redemption-2-onlmh · 2 years

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Cheats in Redemption | Red Dead Wiki | Fandom

💾 ►►► DOWNLOAD FILE 🔥🔥🔥 Red Dead Redemption 2 has a full list of cheats which give you various advantages in the game, like unlocking weapons or new Dead-Eye level upgrades. The game's multiplayer component, Red Dead Online, has no cheats though. The cheats for the single player version don't work in Online, nor can you expect there to ever be any kind of cheats in Online. For some of you, this may read like a rather obvious statement. Obviously, why would there be cheats in Red Dead Online? That said, a lot of folk aren't as clear on this. Those players who have experience with Rockstar's other big multiplayer spin-off, Grand Theft Auto Online, will know how relevant the discussion regarding cheating in multiplayer really is. The basic reason for the lack of cheats in Red Dead Online comes down to the economy. As we've already written about, the in-game economy is currently horribly broken. Hopefully, by the time the beta has run its course and Red Dead Online is fully released, things will have been adjusted enough to make it less of a grind, and to eliminate the issue of playing one's self into virtual bankruptcy. While not yet implemented, Red Dead Online will also feature microtransactions that allow players to purchase in-game premium currency with real money. Using the premium currency you can buy cosmetics, horse insurance and weapon customization, among other things. Gold, this premium currency, can be acquired through gameplay but at a very slow pace, which is the incentive for purchasing it. If players have access to cheats, that means they have an advantage that makes farming Gold and regular currency easier or in the case of some codes, would eliminate the need to purchase any upgrades completely , removing the incentive to purchase microtransactions. It also tosses up game balance, ruins PvP and is ill-fitting with immersion and realism. Let's look at a bit of background here. Rockstar learned much about making multiplayer games with their development and on-going support for GTA Online. Rockstar's experiences with that game undoubtedly shaped Red Dead Online in an immense way. Thing is, with GTA Online, Rockstar has been fighting an unending battle with cheaters since practically day one. GTA Online having been released on Xbox and PlayStation 3 before the current gen, those long-cracked consoles proved to be a hotbed for hacking. When the game was released on PC, the peer-to-peer servers put up virtually no resistance to the hackers on that platform. And with character transfers, these vulnerable platforms allowed hackers to access the game on the uncracked Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles. Though the situation has been cleaned up for the most part, there were long stretches of time in and where, based on the level of community outrage, one might have thought that GTA Online was made unplayable by rampant hacking. This was almost true. The situation is inherently different with Red Dead Online, yes. The game has only been released so far on the currently uncracked PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles, making hacking a non-issue. However, in all likelihood there will be a PC release at some time in the future, and we never know when hackers might crack these current-gen platforms too. Even if, hypothetically, hacks for Red Dead Online appear in the future, their use will incur severe consequences which would likely involve progress wipes and permanent bans, if GTA Online's policy is anything to go by and rightly so! That's the long version of why Rockstar will never suffer cheats in Red Dead Online. So what can you do if you feel stuck, or need help with progress? Your options are restricted to legitimate ones, but if you work smart you can thrive in the game just as well. First of all, since this is the beta testing phase, the current state of the in-game economy should not be considered final. Considering the magnitude of the criticism aimed at prices and rewards, we think that Rockstar is very likely going to change things before the full release of Red Dead Online. Beyond that, you can refer to our numerous guides that help you master the various mechanics of Red Dead Online. Whether it's money-making , ranking up or using the ability card system, we've got you covered with tips and trick to up your game. Keep your eye on our Red Dead Online guides section as we update it with new information and walkthroughs. Join our discussion forums Aron is up to date on all the daily happenings with regard to Red Dead Redemption 2 and that's why you'll find he posts most of the news here at RDR2. You can find Aron on Facebook. Forgot password?

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simpingfortwst · 3 years

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The Demon Brothers As Video Games

Don’t ask what this is, I wrote this, like, a year ago when lockdown started to get to me and I went a bit stir-crazy and I think its time it gets taken out of my drafts (and because that lockdown series is going to take a while). It’s exactly what it the title says. Enjoy.

Lucifer

The game overall was good however the character you play as (Lucifer) became insufferable and difficult to play so I switched to another character (Diavolo) but there was a glitch and the original character seemed to be INSIDE the new one. However I contacted the game developers and they apologized and overcompensated with tons of in game currency as an apology.

8/10

Mammon

You want me to pay H O W M U C H for a tycoon game.

N/A

Leviathan

The game sounded really cool and it was a reasonable price. Now I have it downloaded, I can say that the graphics are really cool and the game runs smoothly but that’s all I can say about the game. I’ll update you after I've figured out how to manoeuvre the character out of his room.

6/10

Satan

The gameplay is somewhat remanicent of Flappy Bird if it was developed by Yandere-dev.

screw you/10

Asmodeus

The game has really beautiful graphics and character models, the storyline is relatively good by eroge standards and pretty enjoyable to play. I just wish my character would stop throwing a hissy fit everytime I try to change his clothes.

9/10

Beelzebub

I don’t have much to say about the game other than when I opened the box, there was a bite taken out of the disk. And I’m even less sure what the game devs want me to do with 10,000 of the in-game apology money for a game that has been rendered unplayable.

2/10 (I guess the packaging was cute)

Belphegor

A practically had to make a pact with demons to get my hands on the game, only to find out that the game is insufferably slow.

0/10

Lilith

The game has been taken off Steam, I can’t think why.

#obey me #lucifer #mammon #leviathan #asmo #satan #beel obey me #belphie #shall we date #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me levi #obey me satan #obey me asmo #obey me beel #obey me belphie #obey me lilith

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butwhatifidothis · 3 years

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I did it! Finally fucking did it! I 100% the support log for 3H….Holy shit, that took longer than I was expecting, lol.

(Long rant, so heads up.)

I came in thinking “Oh they finally time-locked the supports, so I don’t have to have the damn cursor mocking me every time I open the menu like in Awakening and Fates, hurr hurr”. No no no no no. At least for Awakening and Fates, it was on my dumb ass for pressing the S-support and saving when I knew I shouldn’t. First off, if they wanted us to regain supports for Byleth in NG+, why the heck are supports for characters like Edelgard, Rhea, Dorothea and Lindhart locked? I don’t mean time-locked like the post-TS supports in a regular playthrough, I mean deadass “you can’t buy this, period” locked. “Oh it’s because you haven’t advanced that far in the story yet”. I can buy post-TS supports for the other characters, what makes El and Rhea exceptions?! The only thing that would be lost is that I don’t have to replay their entire route to get their S-support twice. It’s not like there’s enough differences between Bylad and Bylass to warrant the supports being locked, none of the characters specify a specific gender in their dialogue, and as far as different models go, changing models during a cutscene is coded into the game, so that should be no issue.

After going through the monastery option enough times, the hubworld is in this weird limbo state where it feels like it was made specifically for Byleth’s benefit (faculty training, recruiting party members, etc,) but the rest of the party seems to benefit from it instead (Instructions, Motivation points, etc). The Explore vs Battle options just don’t mix well, which feels like poor design choice. You can focus on auxiliary battles to raise your party’s level, but at the cost of potentially missing out on more party members. You can instead focus on the monastery to recruit party members, but at the cost of Byleth falling behind due to splitting activity points between recruiting and faculty training, and being in the monastery means less time grinding for levels. This isn’t as much of a problem in NG+, but if a game needs NG+ to lessen a design problem, then that’s more of a sign to me that the idea itself needed more ironing out.

As far as using the monastery to raise support points goes, the hubworld definitely needs a revamp. The only (good) options available are Meal Time and Choir Practice, with the latter being limited to once per week and the former making me think that the monastery must eat their own weapons to survive due to how fucking scarce food ingredients are. Getting meat and fish isn’t too big of an issue so long as you have enough money, but produce might as well be an urban legend. There were too many times where I had 60+ fish/meat, but produce was at fucking 1. I get that they wanted to be “realistic” in having seeds grow once per week, but if it’s at the cost of a gameplay element being nigh unplayable, then some more thought needs to be put into it. Sothis is a goddess of life and time, maybe her powers allow Byleth to make plants grow faster. Just something to make this section actually playable.

The final thing I wanted to talk about when it comes to the monastery is that, for some baffling reason, it is entirely possible to lock yourself out of key events like S-supports or being able to choose CF, simply by skipping to the end of the month. I’m not sure why this is a thing. It’s not like the game was designed with speedruns in mind (I mean, it is possible to beat a route in an hour, but fuck me if I ever succeeded in that), and nothing happens like a prompt popping up that you have to explore the monastery during that month or even limiting your options to just Explore (which the game has done before). This is especially weird for the quest in getting Jeralt’s ring (how to access S-supports), since Byleth is supposed to be sad in this month, so not being able to do seminars or Byleth being undeployable during auxiliary battles would make sense.

The option to choose CF is even worse though, because at least for Jeralt’s ring it’s a Red Quest that doesn’t allow you to finish exploring unless you complete it. For Edelgard, however? A dime-a-dozen quest prompt you can entirely look over and skip. No prompt by the game, no indication to talk to Edelgard, nothing. FFS, Rhea’s tea time quest was given more thought. At least her quest marker is a unique color.

(End of rant…sort of)

…So anyways, that was my experience with the game, lmao. Now you or someone else may be thinking, “nonnie, if you had this many problems completing the game, why did you bother?”, and the answer to that good question is…I’m not completely sure, lol. I know there’s more than one reason why, so bear with me here. I know part of it is due to sunk-cost fallacy (“I’m already this far into the game, I might as well fully complete it”), but I think a bigger reason is because I knew ahead of time that the routes were so similar to each other that there was little point in having a route split to begin with (except for CF, but who gives a fuck about that?). Despite all of my bitching, I do really like 3H even if I admit that it’s my least favorite FE game that I’ve played so far. I guess a part of me just wanted to like the game more despite my issues with it.

Now that I think about it, maybe the main reason was for fear of future mainline games. People are fear to like whatever part of a game that they wish, but I do think that 3H introduced some fundamental storytelling flaws that I’d rather not see repeated in the future, with me focusing on 3 in particular: 1) The Monastery, 2) Route Splits and 3) Byleth.

Aside from what I already talked about in regards to the monastery, if we are going to get another hubworld in the new FE title, have it to where it doesn’t conflict with how the rest of the story is presented. Is it better to simply tell us that the Western Church is xenophobic in an easily skippable side quest early on, or is it better to show us? Enemy Western Church NPCs going after foreign party members like Dedue or Petra more aggressively and calling them “animals” or the like, the map having Duscari NPCs locking themselves indoors for fear that the Western Church will persecute them, things of that nature. Is it better to tell us that there has been civil unrest in the Empire and the citizens revolting against Edelgard, or is it better to show us? Enemy Adrestian Civilian NPCs, assassins specifically going after Edelgard in a map, maybe one where a large farmland has been stripped bare. Things like that.

I’d rather do away with the Persona-calendar/Monastery hubworld, but if they are here to stay then they need enough content in it to keep the player engaged for 20-odd chapters, because there isn’t enough content in Garreg Mach to even hold up 12 chapters. Speaking of more content, if there’s going to be another route split in the next title, then there needs to be enough differences in the routes that actually warrants having a route split. Fates already did this well in having the route split be early in the game, along with the plot and story maps of each route being different, you could even skip to the route split moment on subsequent playthroughs, so 3H’s approach in having to play the same 12 chapters 3-4 times just felt like a massive downgrade. Playing multiple routes should feel rewarding rather than tedious, is what I’m trying to say.

Finally, and most importantly, I know that no one at IS is reading this but on the off chance that someone is - please, for the love of God, do not make another blank-slate/self insert main character like Byleth. Or at the very least, don’t have them be the focal point of the story, it’s a big reason why AM just works better than the other routes. For a game like FE, “self-insert” and “protagonist” goes as well as oil and water. Now, out of those three flaws listed, the Byleth one is what I’m hard set on. The monastery and route split flaws, my opinion might be flexible within reason, but the Byleth one…not so much, lol. If we really do get another self-insert doll for a main character, that alone is going to make the next game a hard sell for me, because seeing all the praise Byleth got (and has been getting) makes me fear that IS is going to take the wrong lesson from this and think they don’t have to put effort in making their protagonist anything resembling an actual person and their audience will still lap it up. It would be one thing if I just hated the character, but I don’t. I’m disappointed, which is even worse.

…With that said, it’s still better than whatever the heck Cap’n’Crunch is doing. Okay, rant over. For real this time.

—

I agree with a lot said here! But I do have a few disagreements, though they’re mostly my opinion than anything else lol

And this first one is probably like, extremely unpopular given how much shit I’ve seen flung at this aspect of 3H, but like… I actually really like the Monastery? Like yes, absolutely, it should have done more to not shelter the player from how bad the war is and it should change more with the world instead of being in this mostly limbo state where apparently seasons don’t real. I definitely also have those complaints, but to me, the Monastery was fine for the most part. A lot of the issues you brought up, like supports and Faculty Training and supplies for eating, weren’t a problem for me almost at all. My only real gripe is with how hard it is for Byleth to get training in Flying, Mounted and especially Heavy Armor without NG+ unlocking weapons ranks, since they don’t have access to Weekly Chores. I do believe I still managed to recruit everyone while only unlocking C in Faith on my Maddening playthrough of GD, but it certainly wasn’t easy. But I feel a lot of the problem people have with it are on subsequent playthroughs where they’re trying to do things like 100% any aspect of 3H, which yeah is gonna exacerbate the issues tenfold. Cuz like, while those three weapons ranks I mentioned are hard for Byleth to raise, on Normal mode you have unlimited auxiliary battles to help with all the other ones.

Like, I wanted to get Claude’s Dex to the max amount right? Just cuz I felt like it. And in doing that I found out just how tedious it is to get levels once a unit gets to a certain point, just cuz while Normal Mode gives you the Retreat option that lets you keep exp so you can drop a unit down on a yellow spot and get a decent boost in exp… you can do that like, twice or thrice on a story chapter. Once if it’s auxiliary (and not the freebie one). And that’s if you even have internet. And using the greenhouse to get Ailiell Pomegranates was a pain because they weren’t really guaranteed even if I used nothing but the right seed - doing that is more consistent, but not always, and I usually only got one anyway. It was annoying! But I was also doing a specific thing that’s gonna heighten the flaws in the system that I never would have noticed - didn’t even notice - unless I did that. The flaws are still there, don’t get me wrong! The Monastery definitely still needs improvement, battles still need to be a little more streamlined for future playthrough, but the flaws can seem a bit bigger than they are once you do certain things outside of a casual playthrough, know what I mean?

But, for example, when replaying 3H on hard mode and looking to recruit everyone after my no recruitment run, I didn’t come across any dilemma over “recruitment or Byleth being good, pick one.” That was the run my Byleth was usable, in fact - my first blind run that was no recruitment (save for Shamir) had my Byleth be pretty much completely useless while literally everyone else was fine. Also never came across problems with supplies for cooking (or at least not any big enough to comment on). So like, while these (and the above stuff) can certainly be problems for players trying to do everything everything in 3H, at least from my experience I just haven’t come across them. The monastery itself definitely needed a better story implementation, but yeah. I could’ve just been lucky tho lmao

I don’t mind how they implemented trying to get on CF at all tho lol. If you’ve been playing the game like it suggests you do - supporting characters and exploring the monastery there’s no reason for players to have missed getting on CF. If players wanted to ignore one of the biggest aspects of the game I don’t really feel that bad for them when they miss out on very achievable things. Plus, CF’s requirements are nothing in terms of FE’s madness when it comes to getting on a route. It may be more specific than any other route, but like I said, playing the game as the game tells you to would naturally land you in it (the only thing that might be a bit unfair is that I think if you talk with Edelgard at all that month you have to decide right then and there, and then the whole month is lost. Kinda ass).

Binding Blade, for example, requires you to do specific things that few first time players would think to do in multiple, random chapters in order for you to get the best ending. With absolutely no warning as to when these chapters happen and what to do in them. And some of these requirements are not fun lmao, I’d prefer how they did it with CF than with how they’ve handled ~secret~ stuff before personally

Pretty much agree with everything else though! While 3H is actually one of my more favored games in the series, I’ll be the first to admit that its storytelling is in dire need of improvement. Having the story and lore of the game just be spat out in lore dumps and this or that NPC just isn’t that good. Or if they are going to do that, at the very least give some visuals to go along with it! Imagine how much impactful Rhea’s story would have been if it was in a visual format, like CGs and/or a cutscene. It still would be an info dump, but at least we can see for ourselves how horrific the Red Canyon was for her! And I do not want another avatar in whatever next mainline game we get, personality or not. We’ve evolved past the need for self-inserts that all the characters Just Like lmao

But thanks for sharing your thoughts!! And sorry that it took so long for me to get to answering ;w;

#submission #anon #exqueuese me princess #but hey I found the og submission at least!! for some reason it got thrown in like the middle of my drafts?? weird lmao #but yeah overall I do think 3H could've done with some refinement for later more intensive playthroughs #and on the other hand I get why they didn't immediately think of them if that makes sense #also lol yeah the base game is infinitely more fun that whatever Cap'n'n doin' lmao

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simpingforobeyme · 3 years

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The Demon Brothers As Video Games

(reposting this because I wanna put it on my fancy schmancy new OM account)

Lucifer

8/10

Mammon

You want me to pay H O W M U C H for a tycoon game.

N/A

Leviathan

6/10

Satan

The gameplay is somewhat remanicent of Flappy Bird if it was developed by Yandere-dev.

screw you/10

Asmodeus

9/10

Beelzebub

2/10 (I guess the packaging was cute)

Belphegor

A practically had to make a pact with demons to get my hands on the game, only to find out that the game is insufferably slow.

0/10

Lilith

The game has been taken off Steam, I can’t think why.

#obey me #lucifer #mammon #leviathan #satan #asmo #beel #belphie #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me levi #obey me asmo #obey me satan #obey me beel #obey me belphie #obey me shall we date #shall we date #obey me lilith

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pestopascal · 3 years

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While I will absolutely agree that CB2077 isn’t the ONLY game doing all this bullshit, or that other AAA studios don’t deserve the flack CDPR is getting, I have to say that this is absolutely the perfect storm and I think people are FINALLY seeing the problems in modern AAA gaming. CB2077 might be fun to play, may have a good story, but it’s almost impossible to see because of the glaring issues. Which, honestly, is a good thing. I hope games change after this.

under here

AAA studios have been like this and this sort of release has been completely normalised on all accounts by both the businesses themselves and fans because of the inherent reliance on modders (bethesda at the forefront of this), as well as the pushback every time companies actually go ‘uh we need a lil more time’ (although... they just shouldnt announce potential release dates, im even of the camp they shouldnt even start releasing the game until like 6 months out from their official date because they fuck it up every time. borderlands 3 being the only game i know of being in “secret” development and then announcing itself in march for a september release. game itself aside, thats how companies should do it). easily i can remember a lot of 2011 release games which have had the exact same issues as cp77′s release, and then every other game in between since. very rarely do you actually have a game that isn’t a fucked up mess of a pile of pixels. and it is always the customisable character ones that are honestly, genuinely, ugly looking at release. but you can definitely say its been happening looooooong before 2011, with unrealistic expectations, word limits, 11 month time frames, offloading sequels to smaller companies so they can suffer if it fails, etc etc. the entire system has been like this for so long... they dont know any real different nowadays.

i mean look. tlou2 released under crunch conditions this year, and was rewarded. it was ALL over the social media feeds, it was quite the controversy because, surprise surprise, the company promised they wouldnt do it uwu and then. bam ! crunch conditions. literally around that time too, bioware employees came out with a statement saying ‘man we wish dai FAILED so that back in 2014 we couldve proven crunch was a wrong practice’. they say this as well after having to produce da2 in 14 months, which just suffered from fans and journalism for reusing environments, because it was produced in 14 months, and honestly? no one pointed that out back then, bioware themselves pointed it out again this year, 6 years after release, that that game was produced in 14 months. rdr2′s release was hounded by stories of crunch, and they all disappeared into the night because... it was heralded as the best game of all time. that was 2018, 2 years ago.

i think too is that some people get kind of ... morally and ethically concerned. which is understandable. can you consume something when you know it was made under conditions like crunch? and i think one of the most confronting things about it is that 9/10, not only has your favourite company engaged in crunch conditions, they almost actively choose to continue with them. and then that’s a whole other bag of issues blown up over there when it comes to what is able to be consumed what isn’t etc etc

i think also like a mix of marketing, promises and then the expectations of what the game will be like have really had cdpr earn the ire of fans which is just like... you don’t believe what these companies are saying. you never should, esp when it’s their ceo’s saying it who don’t work on the actual floor. bioware itself is the main culprit of doing this to the point they finally came around with all the da4 concept art and teasing to be like ‘ummm but actually dont get invested?’. remember all that qunari lady fanart that bioware management was like ... please dont get attached? yeah. yeah. like at what point as well is there going to be heavy level of apprehension to approach this? and i can’t really talk either, i cracked open the door for mass effect again. i know exactly what kind of shit bioware will pull, i know they are teasing it already on social media, but mass effect is my ride or die series. that’s why people keep opening the door on letting these companies get away with it. and you can’t fault fans entirely either because this is down to a science of how to get money. i mean, fuck, mass effect andromeda’s entire advertising campaign HINGED on the n7 logo. for the nostalgia value. and i see text posts in the same vein of both ‘guys, disney isnt gonna fuck you if you consume every remake for nostalgia value’ and ‘its understandable why people do it’.

so then you have to go ‘well are fans as just to blame’ and then that’s a whole other argument.

i think also like. i personally havent run into aaaannnyyyyyyy of the issues that you see posted online. which is ironic bc 1) i play on ps4 and 2) its an old dusty ps4. in fact a lot of ppl i have spoken to who have had issues have played on pc. does this mean the glitches dont exist? ofc not, the vids and screenshots are right there. but like... ive had a basically unhindered experience so far, and i get where ppl are coming from (i do, i promise) where theyve basically found the game unplayable. is there also a standard of what ppl consider unplayable because ive played most AAA games at launch when they basically rushed to slap the box label on the game and called it a day until they work on patches. when ppl consider unplayable is also just... different per person. some people have a slight blur on the screen when turning too fast even in an MMO and decide the game is horrible and unplayable. some people can have broken quests and npcs not loading and falling through maps and still be fine. there’s no agreed statement of what makes a game unplayable either, which is why you read threads on twitter and someone goes ‘yeah this npc t-posed so i quit in the first hour’ with a dozen replies. everyone has different levels of it.

it’s a mixed bag of issues. im not excusing cdpr, but the ppl who worked on the game are honestly likely not the ones who pushed for a release. you’ve gotta look at sony and microsoft and ceo’s with bonuses coming up and the investors and shareholders and people who sit behind computers and read numbers detailing interest and demand and supply and how every single time they had to delay this game, the loudest (but smallest) bunch of assholes on like reddit and in the twitter threads complained that it was delayed AGAIN even though back in what 2015? they said it’ll come out when it’s ready. and yeah there are times when game delays result in a mismatched half assed sort of story (kh3... p5... ffxv... dai...) and then there are times when, if they need to delay the game... they probably need to delay the game. sometimes delays are bad sometimes theyre good sometimes you are sitting there like whew if you only didn’t try to be like THIS TIME this is the release date.

the ONLY WAY this will stop happening is, quite frankly, unionising. and everyone is allergic to that whole concept so like... this is “the perfect storm” as you put it. but it’s also not. people have been so disappointed over the last 2 years alone for gaming companies, the final product, the attitudes from higher ups, that i think cdpr is receiving a good few years worth of anger. i think theyre also on the receiving end of misdirection from american fans who still don’t fucking get the company isn’t american, because that’s another bag of issues as well. like we’re holding at least 8 bags of groceries out of the back of the car now, and we don’t want to take another trip, because there are so many little bits of this entire situation to look at. there’s so much back and forth.

i think the worst, but most realistic thing is: games won’t change. how they will social media wise will. maybe. assuming bioware gets their heads out their asses but... they’re going to be a lot more careful. i mean, hell, sony offered refunds. that was just a publicity stint. they dont give a fuck if the game was bad. as i said before, if they did, they would make all companies fix trophy problems, starting from like 2010 or whenever the trophy system first came out. they just don’t wanna fall in alongside cdpr being thrown on its sword. but the companies are gonna learn from this, get smarter, still do the same shit to their employees, still pay off journalists, still do media blackouts, etc etc. and we’re gonna be here in another year’s time, with another game, having these same roundabout arguments, and cp77′s issues are gonna fade into just a wikipedia article.

#replies #this got long so i threw it under a cut #i just like wrote as i was thinking too in between ovw sry lol #Anonymous

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inventors-fair · 3 years

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Shareholders Meeting (Generosity Commentary)

This was absolutely new territory for me, 100%. I used to be a Sen Triplets player, for cryin’ out loud. Who would I give my opponents anything, ever, for any reason? But that’s the beauty of this, though. Being a Magic player and running design contests means I have to see beyond what I might want to play with right off the bat. And I do have my manipulative tactics from time to time. Has anyone seen that Modern deck that synergizes with Suture Priest/Blood Seeker, Hunted Phantasm, Forbidden Orchard, Sickness in the Ranks, and Blood Artist? It’s jank but I love it.

When talking about these cards, there are the usual questions about design and likes/dislikes, but there’s the most important question, and one that’s gonna come up a lot:

Is there any reason this card HAS to enter under an opponent’s control?

The main issue I saw with a lot of cards is that there wasn’t always a reason for them to be under an opponent’s control, instead of just having an effect that could exist on the card regularly. For this commentary, I’ll be calling that a “Control Factor.” Also, some cards that were potential winners/runners will be marked as Judge Picks.

Let’s take a look.

@aethernalstars — Labyrinthine Towershell

Likes/Dislikes: This is an oddball design first and foremost. I can see the inspiration from the art, and while I don’t play WoW I can get the gist of what that place is, what the world is, through your design, so that’s nice! Shroud being what it is, though, and considering an opponent gains control of it, I’m not sure why that was chosen over hexproof. Just so an opponent can’t get rid of it with targeting effects? I can see how this would slow them down. I’m not sure why blue/red are the colors for this card. It feels mostly blue/green. Is the red because of the control? Additionally, I feel that even with the color weight this card is severely undercosted; you made a powerful ability, which is good! Just needs balance.

Control Factor: I’m feel that this could have been a hexproof creature with “Whenever a creature an opponent controls” etc. to affect their board that way. What’s the flavor of an opponent gaining control of this? Why not just have the turtle as a kind of maze guardian? It’s a strong ability and contender.

Nitpicks: Second ability should probably be an “as” ability and not an ETB trigger, and needs “an opponent of your choice.” Or see Xantcha’s oracle.

~~~

@askkrenko — Maheer, Trusted Advisor (JUDGE PICK)

Likes/Dislikes: I had a headache trying to figure out what this card would do practically on the battlefield. And you know what? I had a field day and I loved it and wow, this card is a competitive player’s dream. The resource management, the potential loss, the incredible decisions to be made, the way that this has to be utilized for optimizing life loss and card advantage and deciding who gets what where... Wow. I can imagine this card being in some competitive cube and/or actually severely affecting eternal formats and/or limited. Impressive and difficult. For two mana I’d say it’s pushed, but pushed ain’t broken. Probably.

Control Factor: Yes, the switching of control for life loss and the flavor of a lying advisor traveling across the battlefield works both flavorfully and mechanically.

Nitpicks: “Activate this ability,” not “Use.”

~~~

@dabudder — Bounty Board

Likes/Dislikes: Fight is a difficult ability sometimes. And this card has repeatable fight, colorless fight, and ramping. I feel that that’s just enough to be a break. Arena and Triangle of War are old as butts, and nowadays I don’t know if there would be that much of a precedent at such a low cost. If you have a good enough board state even in limited, this card becomes a gold-giver in exchange for destruction at two mana. I do like the flavor, and the flavor text ain’t bad. Probably still too big a risk.

Control Factor: I like the flavor but I don’t understand it entirely. Who is on the bounty board? Your creatures, or your opponent’s creatures? If it’s yours, why are you playing a card that puts a bounty on them? If it’s your opponents, wouldn’t YOU get the reward for fulfilling the bounty?

Nitpicks: “Gold” should be capitalized, and probably be “Treasure.”

~~~

@deafeningsandwichpeach — Ancient Sea Gate

Likes/Dislikes: I feel that unfortunately this card is fundamentally broken, and not in your favor. Yeah, they skip a draw step, but now you’re giving an opponent a land that can activate a Emmessi Tome for two mana every turn. At that point you’ve lost a land drop, you’ve given them card advantage at the cost of a single draw step, and you are immediately and woefully behind. The mechanics of this card as they are now are interesting, absolutely interesting, and absolutely unplayable.

Control Factor: Mechanically I kind of see what you were trying to go for. Flavorfully I don’t understand at all.

Nitpicks: None. (Well, I mean, the border for lands that make colored mana should match, but that’s not your fault at all.)

~~~

@dimestoretajic — Xantcha, Enlightened Infiltrator

Likes/Dislikes: Once I could read this card, I understood its intentions. It’s a strong callback to Xantcha, so you know, kudos for that. And also, this card only works in multiplayer, which is a bit of a problem. If you only have one opponent, then you play this card, you activate the 0 and draw/lose life, and then you have to attack her until she gets to ten because that zero ability literally can’t be activated. If you’re the only opponent, then nobody can be targeted. Was that intentional? If so, kudos for making a complex card but un-kudos because that feels super unintuitive. “lowest numerical value” also doesn’t entirely make sense to me, because it’s not a “negative ten” ability, it’s “remove ten loyalty counters” as an activation cost.

I feel that there could be a risk-reward potentially associated with this card, or you could add the must abilities into the activations themselves, but it’s hovering in between clunky and unplayable. Assuming the best, that you’re in a 3-4 player game, you have a insanely-difficult-to-remove clock for three mana that draws you a crapload of cards. Which, you know, some people could like! But it’s the kind of card that doesn’t make you friends.

Control Factor: Yep, checks out. See above notes on opponent targeting in 1v1, though.

Nitpicks: “0″ abilities don’t need a plus or minus. Was this a card creator limiting factor? If so, ignore my ignorance.

~~~

@emmypupcake — Volatile Mixture

Likes/Dislikes: It’s a cute bauble that swings around and hurts people, checks out. Colored artifact with a relevant ability, sure thing. How does it play? ... Well, I was doubtful and then I read it again. Wow, I really misread this card. So you’re playing hot potato for a whole lot of turns. Okay, that’s fun. That’s fun! Yeah, I totally messed up when I read this the first time. I think that this card is pretty interesting in concept. I think that it could kind of be just a tax, though, and it’s entirely possible that it just never goes off during a game and everyone is spending two mana to ensure that they don’t get stuck. Or, for three mana, you’ve made kind of a worse shock. It’s a perfectly fine card that probably needs a more volatile gimmick. What if it flipped coins or something? I don’t know, I’m spitballing. Hm, but no, ignore that, I’m liking the flavor of having to keep it under control. Shame that it just doesn’t have a guaranteed explosion.

Control Factor: Fun enough to use the wording, juggles well, forces decisions. Checks out!

Nitpicks: “Volatile Mixture enters the battlefield under target opponent’s control.” Could also Xantcha that wording.

~~~

@evscfa1 — Contract of Peace

Likes/Dislikes: There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with this card’s design, but it feels clunky to say the least. Four separate abilities that are tangentially connected, the weird activation, the static... I think, more than anything, I don’t get it. What’s the contract? What’s the peace of a one-sided battlefield? Is it ironic, with a bribery type of activation? What do the Treasures have to do with peace? This card could be printed but again, I don’t understand why it would exist, or the world around it, or what sort of set it would belong in. “Disjointed” is a good word for this card. A singular design that doesn’t feel like it meshes with any flavor or archetype. All cards are submitted without context, but the best cards imply context, and that’s where I feel the mark was missed.

Control Factor: Is an opponent being forced to sign a contract? Again, the “why” of this card feels obfuscated.

Nitpicks: “15” should be written out as “fifteen.”

~~~

@fractured-infinity — Sleeper Agent’s Gambit

Likes/Dislikes: I loved this card until I didn’t. On the surface, you have a fantastic flavorful design with great flavor text and a new, silly ability. And then, for three mana, you essentially ensure that your opponents are going to have the most frustrating time of their lives. In limited, this card is an early-game decimator, and that’s...well, it feels a little harsh. Two targets (creature you control + opponent) and the multicolored factor aren’t that hard to get around, and once you do, my gut says that this card is more frustrating than fun, especially when you consider some of the creatures that you can give to your opponent. How could it have been improved? Well, consider: what if it was an aura? It could be put on a creature then given to an opponent, and it had those abilities. “Gambits” are calculated but still have a risk, like a non-indefinite strategy. I want to like this idea but I’m still getting frustrating over fun. Look at Necrotic Plague, for example. In kind of the same vein, y’know?

Control Factor: Perfect.

Nitpicks: If all else fails and you wanna keep this card, the wording could be a little more streamlined: “Target opponent gains control of target creature you control. That creature gains ‘This permanent can’t be sacrificed’ and ‘At the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice a creature.’” For your future, make sure “can’t” replaces “cannot,” and that punctuation goes inside quotes.

~~~

@fumblehawk — Gwafa, Monopolous Merchant

Likes/Dislikes: Out of all the things I expected, a different take on Gwafa “MF’in’” Hazid was not one of them. So the card itself! It’s cool. It’s a little weird, but it’s cool. I like the idea of drawing cards as payment for forcing gifts. The tax effect is something very interesting to consider with how much this card kind of wants to get rid of cards, and you can end up giving things that tax all players, and even make some kind of freaky Zedruu deck. I mean, this feels MADE for Zedruu and Grand Arbiter and all kinds of EDH decks. The thing is, this card doesn’t feel too different from the OG Gwafa, and I don’t know how to feel about that. There’s nothing wrong with revisiting legendary creatures, of course, but the effect... I don’t know, I’m iffy on it. This is a strong submission but I feel that there could have been a different method of execution.

Control Factor: Checks out!

Nitpicks: The “draw a card” should be a separate sentence, just like, “They do the thing. Draw a card.” Secondly, it’s “Spells your opponents CAST cost” etc. Small note, but...this card is really small. Consider downloading Magic Set Editor or finding a better way to export your cards, if you can?

~~~

@gollumni — Gift of Humility

Likes/Dislikes: Don’t be humble, you finished your final! Congrationulations! So this card. It’s a’ight? So here’s the thing. Nine Lives + this card. HA. Hilarious! Delusions of Mediocrity! Illusions of Grandeur! Nefarious Lich! There’s a lot of mean and dumb and fun synergies with this card, and the thing is, well, I know you were in a place when you submitted this. So I’ll excuse the lack of flavor text and whatever and just say that, like Harmless Offering from Eldritch Moon, this card has potential and still nobody’s gonna want to open it from a booster pack. Unless it becomes massively competitive in some stupid Esper Lich Control deck.

Control Factor: Yep, that’s the point of the card!

Nitpicks: Get some sleep.

~~~

@hiygamer — Tibalt, Chaotic Menace

Likes/Dislikes: It’s interesting how many legendary cards people submitted for this contest. Hm, guess we did have three as example designs. Regardless! So the activated abilities are the best part of this card. I do like the tension between a random player and a random player who’s not Tibalt’s owner. In 1v1 this can get really tense. Ditch a card at random, flip a coin, aaaand... Nope, you’re stuck with him. My main complaint is the second trigger. “The number of loyalty counters that were on him as the turn began?” There are so many memory issues potentially associated with that. The more triggers that go off and the more factors that go into calculating that, the less reasonable that ability becomes. This card isn’t bad, and I know why you wanted that ability, but there has to be a better way of making that happen. I’d workshop that a bit. And also, if you’re using MSE? Consider changing individual text sizes because wow this card is hard to read.

Control Factor: Yep, makes sense that he’s going around wrecking face, and the complexities are totally fine.

Nitpicks: I’m pretty sure the first ability should read “You must activate at least one of Tibalt’s abilities each turn if able.” Then “whenever” is just...weird and gets into Judge Tower territory.

~~~

@hypexion — Jenny Spellshare

Likes/Dislikes: So let’s start off with the fact that I like this card’s abilities a lot. That’s... Well, honestly, I don’t even have to qualify that. It’s a powerful Bant commander with crazy group-hug abilities and LOTS of token copies that, while powerful, can be mitigated into some nasty stuff. You got wheels, eggs, control cards, draw limiters—like, imagining setting up things like Hullbreacher and the ilk and going nuts with copies. So yeah, fun Commander card and could even be interesting in limited! My two minor complains that stop this from being really great: One, a faerie creature without flying hasn’t been printed in a non-supplemental set since 1995. Two... “Jenny?” “Judith” at least has Hebrew origins, but man, that name threw me off. I do have a friend named Jenny who plays Magic, funnily enough. Yeah, heh, just something to consider. Kinda takes me out of the world. Consider flavor text?

Control Factor: Perfect for what you want to do.

Nitpicks: What is UP with that line spacing? Did you hit shift+enter? I’m talking about between “cast” and “Whenever.” Or did that just go to a separate line. In any cast those should DEFINITELY be separated. ... Wow, don’t we all love nitpicks. This is probably the nit-picky-est one I’ve done in a while.

~~~

@i-am-the-one-who-wololoes — Xymik, Who Gifts Pain

Likes/Dislikes: So, yeah, Xymic is a name I want to hold me up against a brick wall and weight its body on me, midnight on Halstead street, neon blurs in the air. That is a sexy name. ... Cards? Cards. SO. It’s pretty good. I can see this being part of either a supplemental Commander set OR equally a standard Grixis-themed set, which we haven’t had in a while. Really sucks that Ikoria was both not great gameplay wise and also released in the middle of a pandemic. For this card, personally, I initially thought “well you can just merge them” but I see what you did, clever clogs! Donate a permanent, make ‘em chuck a card. Multiplayer, send a permanent around the table, make ‘em lose life! Huh, this is actually kind of awesome. Small personal factors: I would pump the P/T a little, perhaps, for a four-color card; this could be as much as a 5/3. This does feel more like a Demon than a Devil to me, too. And, a tiny bit of flavor text could go a long way. Could you also have the second ability read “spell or permanent?” It’s niche, but...

Control Factor: Perf-a-rooni.

Nitpicks: None!

~~~

@justincase-1012 — Fire Ant Infestation

Likes/Dislikes: Conceptually, this is cool. Ant infestations done flavorfully are neat, and I like the aspect of you not having to continuously deal damage because you can hit once and then pseudo-populate. On second thought reviewing this card, I think that that’s surprisingly flavorful. Once the ants get in, the rest of the ants can just pump in more freakin’ ants. There are wording nitpicks I’ll get to later, but the gist of this card is that it’s very strong and requires a balance to also make the damage from attacking tokens not hit you too. You know what, I’ll give it a tentative seal of approval. I don’t really get why it’s a 1/3 and not, well, a 3/1, and I’m not sold on the flavor of an “infestation” being a creature. “Fire Ant Colony” could work? Not super flavorful, but it’s in progress. Also, MAJOR issue: There’s a card called Fire Ants with a different ability. Named tokens of previous cards absolutely exist, see Future Sight spellshapers, but this one is way too similar. “Fire Ant Drone” maybe.

Control Factor: Yup, does what it’s gotta do.

Nitpicks: Wording time: “...that player creates a 1/1 red and black Insect creature token named Fire Ant with “At the beginning of your upkeep, Fire Ant deals 1 damage to you.”” And see above notes on that token name.

~~~

@koth-of-the-hammerpants — Temporary Loan

Likes/Dislikes: There is a fundamental flaw in how this card works when you have two extra mana. So, you play this turn four, and now it’s turn five on your go. You drop a three-mana creature, then give it to an opponent, then they give you a random permanent, then you immediately pay UB and sacrifice what they gave you to get your card back. So this card effectively becomes “Whenever a permanent enters the battlefield under your control, you may pay UB. If you do, target opponent sacrifices a permanent” in the most roundabout way. In short, this card is not fun, especially with lands that you can tap for mana in response to entering. under your control.

Control Factor: Flavorfully understandable, see above mechanical notes. Not worth it.

Nitpicks: The “If you do” clause is a run-on sentence and should end with “...a permanent they control and you gain control of it.” “Sacrifice” and “Gain” should be capitalized. And, um... “Time’s up my friend” should definitely be “Time’s up, my friend.” with a period. Because otherwise it sounds like the friend is Christopher Walken in Pulp Fiction.

~~~

@mardu-lesbian — Grift Horse (JUDGE PICK)

Likes/Dislikes: My eyes could not roll out of my head any harder at that name. Stellar work. So! This card! Wow. “Gimme the goods, then I’m gonna wreck shop.” For a four-mana potential fun removal gimmick and an indefinite steal, this is a surprisingly powerful card. “Gimme Ugin, aaaand...here’s a horse. AND BOLT THE HORSE.” Also, I had to double-check, but good wording on that second ability! Scab-Clan Giant, yeah? In short, this does sort of kind of become a rough removal card and more or less wrecks shop with an opponent’s bomb, but rares are supposed to be powerful, y’know? I can’t fault it for that. I’d love to see this in limited, I’d love to see some EDH bullcrap go down with making an indestructible horse or whatever, and hm, what would the art be? Maybe an Eldrazi horse, actually, with tentacles coming out of the mouth. Horse Horror? Yeah, this opens the question: “how powerful can red’s indefinite stealing be?”

Control Factor: Shifty Thrifty Grifty.

Nitpicks: If you’re using MSE, you can adjust the flavor bar offset. Also I’m officially challenging you to draw this horse.

~~~

@misterstingyjack — Mercenary Contract

Likes/Dislikes: So...okay, so you’re turning a creature you control into a mercenary for your opponents? Kind of? You’re getting gold for the things they’re doing, makes sense. I guess. This card’s kind of hard to work around. It’s a lot of text, too. So the thing is, I don’t really get why you’d have to give something to an opponent for this flavor to work. Enchant a creature you control, it gets a buff and has to attack, and whenever it attacks you get a Treasure. Spreading things around doesn’t make the most sense in the world, honestly. But I do get it, and I think I understand the gameplay prioritization you were shooting for. I’m being a little harsh on the card because I feel that in a printed set it could just be worded/printed differently. Fundamentally, it’s not the strangest thing in the world.

Control Factor: See above notes about flavor. Main problem is that why is your contract sending it to work for an opponent? Wouldn’t the opponent have to sign something? Contracts are hard.

Nitpicks: “Whenever enchanted creature attacks or an ability of enchanted creature is activated, if its owner does not control it, that player creates a Treasure token.” See Illusionist’s Bracers.

~~~

@nicolbolas96 — Slimeknife,Mercenary Thallid

Likes/Dislikes: Step one: play Pandemonium/Warstorm Surge. Step two: get literally a 1/1 creature or token. Step three: infinite cards/ETB triggers. That last ability has a LOT of random infinite combos it can do, and I kind of like that, but it’s really asking to be abused. But that’s not a bad thing. Kind of. There are probably more ways to deal damage and whatnot. So the thing is, this card does give the tokens to your opponents, but...why? What major flavorful purpose does it serve? Dowsing Dagger created Plants because it symbolized the undergrowth that the creature had to cut through. Hunted creatures made tokens because they were, well, being hunted. What about Slimeknife? That ability really doesn’t feel like it needs to be on this card, and this card honestly could be a rare. It’s a GREAT deathtouch commander, probably one of the best if it existed. Doesn’t excuse that disconnect, though. ... And yes, “Fungus Assassin” is awesome.

Control Factor: Ultimately, not necessary. The card works better without it.

Nitpicks: “Creature tokens,” not “token creatures.” See Aven Wind Guide. Also, check the comma in the name?

~~~

@nine-effing-hells — Overeager Adjutant

Likes/Dislikes: I’m kind of worried about this card. A one-mana 3/3 with haste is pretty nasty. Goblin Guide and Monastery Swiftspear are already challenging enough, with Vexing Devil also thrown into the burn pile. The question is whether or not the drawback of 1/1s that can’t block and the card disadvantage will be good enough to stop an aggro build. In theory, there would come a point in limited where your opponents are drawing extra cards and playing creatures the Adjutant can’t get through, or you’re doing some nasty removal... But a strong aggro player running something like Burchett’s Gruul build or a devastating Human midrange build will use this card to their advantage. Questions of flavor come up, too. How is eagerness creating tokens? Drawing cards is a maybe, but the things that are being done don’t feel connected to, say, the attacking or you having creatures enter.

Control Factor: I don’t understand flavorfully where the humans are coming from and why they can’t block this creature.

Nitpicks: None.

~~~

@real-aspen-hours — Gift // grift (JUDGE PICK)

Likes/Dislikes: Well, it’s a split card. And it’s a good split card. And it does good things. So, I won’t beat around the bush, the nitpicks are really what doomed this card. There’s just a lot that I had to excuse to make it a judge pick, which is kind of a bummer but against the other submissions, it stands out. So let’s leave that for that section and talk about the good things. I love the rhyming split card names. Frankly, I want to have a future split card contest just to see the weirdness that people come up with. “Gift” is a perfectly acceptable upshifted Harmless Offering, and wow, “grift” is one of the most powerful and frightening cards I’ve seen in a while. It’s reminiscent of Skyclave Apparition, but with the Treasure advantage. This card can 100% take over games and worth playing in nonred decks for that alone. It might need to be four mana, possibly even five, but I do like it a lot.

Control Factor: Yep, “Gift” does it, and actually “grift” too. Heh, it’s neat.

Nitpicks: 1) Grift needs to be capitalized. 2) Your submission was missing rarity. 3) I capitalized “Sorcery” for you but in your original submission both were lowercase. 4) Both rules texts were missing periods at the end. 5) “Nonland” is one word. 5) “Its,” not “it’s.” 6) “Treasure” needs to be capitalized.

~~~

@shakeszx — Alder Hahn, helpful recruiter

Likes/Dislikes: So this is pretty obviously a Commander-oriented card, and that’s alright. I was iffy about some of the flavor stuff, but actually, the “my men always collect” line aligns nicely with the Treasure token creation. Attacks OR blocks—that’s a good catch. Makes 1v1 matches not too overpowered, and you can get some awesome control in. Giving defender tokens to players, or forcing them to block bad attacks... This could be a pretty fun card, honestly. The more I think about it the more I’m down for it. It’s outside of my ordinary play style, but there are symmetrical effects and bribery fun stuff that could make this a funky little card. Not a fan of the name at all, though. “Helpful Recruiter” doesn’t tell me anything about, like, why he’s recruiting, or who his men are, or his motivations, or whatever. The flavor text is great but “helpful” is just...ech, I’m overthinking it. “Recruiter” too, though, like, is he forcing them to be recruited? It feels more like reconnaissance or Mafia-style forced brutality.

Control Factor: Bingo, we’re gettin’ boys.

Nitpicks: Capitalize all important words in the name. Also, the second ability could be “Whenever a creature you own but don’t control attacks or blocks,” right?

~~~

@thedirtside — Burden of Parenthood

Likes/Dislikes: A mythic Nettlevine Blight-ish self-replicated token giver of awesome proportions that means players have to carefully strategize their creature interactions over time? Awesome. I like how if they get two of them, then... You... Oh, wait, it’s... Ha, um, there might be a lil’ flaw here. So, Opponent has a Squire, you play BoP. Their first upkeep, they get their Squire token. You do yours. Their second upkeep, they stack the triggers: “I’m going to have the Burden upkeep trigger resolve first, giving me a copy of my Squire. Then, the first token trigger will resolve, and I’ll sacrifice the second token I created this way.” So all this card does until you get rid of it is allow them to carefully make a token then sac a token each turn. Was that intentional? If so, well, why? Kinda falls apart when you take into consideration Magic’s #weirdness. Also. What does this have to do with parenthood. I’m genuinely stumped what the flavor is supposed to convey. Is this like...people being forced to give birth to putrescent goblins or something??

Control Factor: This part does check out, yeah. However, the contest specified that you weren’t supposed to use effects that gave each player something.

Nitpicks: There shouldn’t really be “target” there. “Nonland” is one word. The base power and toughness should be “1/1″ instead of “1.”

~~~

@walker-of-the-yellow-path — Questing Grail (JUDGE PICK)

Likes/Dislikes: ETB ability, fantastic, okay, we’re conveying that you’re giving someone a challenge your creatures are going to tackle. Attack trigger, fantastic, they’re getting the thrill of the hunt and the charge. Damage trigger, the blood is being spilled and the opponent is considering how much they want to then increase the damage all around and the risk of combat. This card makes combat so complicated, and so much more thrilling, and wowza this would make for some insane limited games. I have two issues. Firstly, this needs to be legendary for the love of God this needs to be legendary. It would fit the flavor, and then the three separate triggers wouldn’t be a pain. As much. Secondly, the last ability. So, are you supposed to get a blood counter on it for each creature that deals combat damage? Because unless something has first strike, it’s going to all happen at the same time. Multiple counters, or just when you get hit for the first time? The intentions are unclear. So I would phrase it to say “Whenever one or more creatures deal combat damage to you, put [a OR that many] blood counter[s] on Questing Grail and their controller gains control of Questing Grail.” Aside from that, this is some Eldraine-y Knight-y Bloody Greatness.

Control Factor: 10/10.

Nitpicks: None!

~~~

@whuh-oh — Gilded Egg // Prized Hatchling (JUDGE PICK)

Likes/Dislikes: This card is a pain in the butt. I love it! So, let’s see. The ways in which you have to ramp up to getting this card specifically under your control is really weird, and measured, and you have to take care of some careful calculation. The sorcery speed is super important, though, and I’m glad you added that in. And man, hatchling counters? Ludevic would be proud. On the flip side, a 2/4 flier in green is pretty rough. I don’t know entirely how I feel about that part specifically. The Food token, ha, that’s glorious. The mana generation, though? WOW. Alhammarret’s Archive makes a whole lot of cool infinite stuff possible, but it’s not easy, I’ll say that much. The mana with the food, like—Wow again. I am Wowed.

Control Factor: The tempting offer and the opportunity is really well-done. Plays nice with the flavor of the sought-after prize.

Nitpicks: Tsk, go back to Modern Masters (2013) witcha “is indestructible”-lookin’ self, CHUMP. ... Ahem. Sorry, I got possessed by the ghost of someone from 2013 elated to open a Vedalken Shackles.

~~~

@wolkemesser — Eden

Likes/Dislikes: Alright, there are...a few points to start from.

Mechanically: if Eden’s controller is doing anything but adding a single mana with this card, then they are bad Magic player, or they have an exact and direct answer to the token being created, because poisonous 3 and a “lose the game” token (with evasion) are so utterly broken that there is no way you’d want an opponent to gain control of them. Even in a 3+ person game, what happens to you? Play Eden, give it to someone last in the order, they give your next opponent a skulking deathtoucher, and then you lose the game. This can happen as early as turn one. In 1v1 this card has no real purpose other than to be used once and basically never again unless someone is forced to use it. In multiplayer games it’s a death sentence. You’re losing a land drop from the deck for a card that won’t ever be used in a way that’s advantageous to your gameplan.

Contextually: In what set is this card supposed to exist? You use both Skulk and Poisonous, retired and unpopular mechanics that don’t appear on the same token even if they do have a possibility of being together. In what environment would this card be played?

Flavorfully: So this is the real, Biblical garden of Eden? Or at least it’s supposed to be? Why are there multiple snakes being made, then? Satan entered the body of a single snake, not a snake that grew more powerful, and the garden entirely was more than just that one tree, granting knowledge, not power. You’ve made a garden of temptation, not paradise.

As a final note after all that rambling, if it was indeed read: On the most technical level, and I hate to say it, the Bible is...Christian IP, basically. There is no Magic world in which Eden could exist because of that. Some religious symbols have also become fantasy tropes such as angels and demons, but the concept of angelic protectors and demonic lords have existed beyond specific religions. This is a specific and sacred religious place. From a strictly professional perspective, err on the side of caution when submitting in the future.

Control Factor: Technically fulfilling.

Nitpicks: The token should be “black and green,” not “green and black.” For the first ability, why strictly from the hand when Crucible of Worlds and whatnot exist?

Tune in next week, when... Well, did you see some of the synergies and combos that I mentioned above? Keep them in mind. Thank you all for your submissions.

—@abelzumi

#mtg #magic the gathering #custom magic card #contest #generosity contest #commentary #entries #inventor's fair

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